Organizational change and SWOT analysis for W.A. Police Communications

Organizational Change

Provide a background analysis about the organization's internal and external environment (SWOT AND PEST)

Organization -- W.A. Police Communications (24/7 police operations call center)

SWOT Analysis (Sheriff Grady Judd, 2013)

Strengths

Weakness

Leadership

Teamwork

Communication

Education & Training

Technology & Equipment

Job Security

Benefits

Vehicles

Take Home

Hiring Process and Standards

Promotional and Transfer Opportunities

The Economy and the Budget

High Turnover

Employee Shortages

Unchanging Pay Scales

Loss of Experts to Retirement

Loss of Experts to Other Law Enforcement Agencies

Obsolete Vehicles

Consistency

Morale Succession Strategy

Inadequate Overtime Pay

Loss of Grants

External

Opportunities

Threats

Training and Educational Opportunities Multi-Agency Collaboration

Professional Certifications

Grants

Prospective Candidate Diversity

Community Relations

The Economy and the Budget

Issues with Retirement System

Fuel Prices

Workforce Shortage/ Large Vacancies

Crime Rate Rise Because of Economic Factors

Growth of Inmate Population

Comparison of Retirement Agency Pay to that of Other Agencies

Lost Grants Sponsoring Unfinanced Mandates Civil Lawsuits

Growth of Citizen Population

PEST Analysis (Tony Williams, Bob King, & Jayne Lee, 2011)

Main factors driving change in case of W.A. Police Communications can be studied via PESTLE analysis:

i. Political

The call center might be required to participate increasingly in delivery of national-level services, without or with provision of additional resources. There is a likelihood of increased focus on joint services for improving efficiency, irrespective of the local political situation, indicating a rallying of the police and other law enforcement bodies.

ii. Economic

Changes in economy can limit fund availability, curtailing ICT (Information and Communications Technology) investments; if a simultaneous improvement in organizational efficiency is expected, it would be highly challenging to fulfill those expectations. Technology department personnel would decrease in number, resulting in a skill deficit.

iii. Social

With population growth, a proportional growth will be witnessed in crime rate. The population is estimated to become increasingly diverse, a phenomenon that has information-related implications. Collaboration with global agencies and law enforcement officials will become vital. A gap in skill level may become apparent between different generations of personnel.

Resource Requirement

The W.A. Police Communications management team must include resource costs for the planning, implementation, supervision, and evaluation phases of the change project, within the total project cost.

Risk Management

Geographic diversity, and computer skills and educational qualification variations among recruits, as well as time constraints are the key challenges for the organization. W.A. Police Communications' management will be made in charge of developing a comprehensive recruit training program, materials and guidelines, defining user classifications and groups, and program administration.

Timelines

The change project plan will ensure provision of continuous, prompt, appropriate and applicable project-related information to organizational and outside stakeholders for acquiring their support. A comprehensive communication plan will be devised for the change program, in keeping with individual solutions' execution timelines.

5. Develop strategies to communicate or educate the changes and embed them.

Proper communication of plan, program, and goals to the workforce is imperative, to guarantee their cooperation and participation in organizational change. Canon U.S.A., which adopts the BSC approach, gives the term "democratizing strategy" for its internal communications processes. The organization actively fosters understanding of corporate strategy and its BSC through support functions and business units. Canon's strategy can work well for W.A. Police Communications. However, just like strategy planning may be delegated to a separate department, the task of strategy communication may also be assigned by the W.A. Police call center to a special department organized for the purpose, like in case of the United States Army and Chrysler, which employ the Office of Strategy Management's services to communicate their strategy and BSC to the workforce. No matter which of the above strategies is utilized, W.A. Police Communications must ensure the Chief Executive delivers all strategy messages to employees directly (Robert S. Kaplan & David P. Norton, The Office of Strategy Management, 2005).

Proper dissemination is that which involves employees of W.A. Police Communications in the process of creating awareness, understanding or a commitment to act. Key points to consider in this regard are (Sally Harmsworth & Sarah Turpin, 2001):

1. The workforce will mostly be interested in knowing how change fits specific contexts and the implications of change on staffing, infrastructure, financing, quality assurance, future policy, etc.

1. Personnel may be overwhelmed by details that don't interest them.

1. The management must consider quality dissemination, rather than quantity -- the purpose of a message must be borne in mind and the most effective mode of communication to satisfy that purpose must be utilized.

1. In case of a number of change projects in similar spheres, a risk of divergent or overlapping activities arises. Contacting other change project implementation leaders and considering efficient resource utilization would be highly beneficial to the organization.

6. How would you obtain approvals and agreements on reporting protocols with relevant managers?

The Police department and call center administrators shall report to their Chief, who will report to the City's Manager, directly, on all issues pertaining to the organization's and workforce's general conduct, governance, and efficacy. The presence of facts that establish a breach of the law, regulations, or rules, procedures or policies, verbal or written dictates, and special or general orders is sufficient to act as the base to initiate departmental discipline or corrective action (Fayetteville Police Department, 2016). In case of proposed new department regulations, rules, procedures, and policies, as well as amendments to existing ones, proper channels will be utilized to direct proposals to the Grants and Accreditation Manager. This Official is in charge of coordinating policy processes and sending the proposal to the W.A. Police Chief for approval. If the Chief does approve of any policy revisions, or of a new policy proposal, the Grants and Accreditation Manager will firstly create a formal draft (if missing) of the suggested policy, whilst simultaneously ensuring no part of the change is in disagreement with the national, territorial/state and local laws. he/she will then forward this proposed draft's copies to law enforcement leaders (stakeholders), such as Captains, Lieutenants, and Assistant Chiefs for their appraisal and feedback. Certain corporate policy changes might need hardly any human resource commitment to effect change. Furthermore, a deadline needs to be determined for returning feedbacks on the proposal. It must be noted that the organization's management may choose to send the draft for review to personnel who may be impacted directly by the proposed change. After the return of all drafts, along with feedback, the Grants and Accreditation Manager will, if required, formulate amended versions of the draft to accommodate any valuable recommendations made through feedback. These revised drafts of proposed change will be, once again, disseminated for final remarks. Subsequently, the Grants and Accreditation Manager will present the final proposal for the W.A. Police Chief's approval. If the Chief approves, the Grants and Accreditation Manager in collaboration with technical service personnel will coordinate communication of change to the entire workforce. Another task for the Grant and Accreditation Manager is: indexing and removal of every departmental policy, written directive, and operational procedure issued, but subsequently annulled, by the Police Chief, as well as maintenance of records of policy appraisal and amendment. In case of other written communications, the issuing official is in charge of all required indexing, removal, and amendment, in addition to communication management.

7. How would you implement the plan including addressing barriers to change?

A comparison of the new generation of personnel at W.A. Police Communications and the veteran, Baby Boomer employee population reveals, clearly, that today's generation-related issues in the organization are about more than simply absorbing new recruits have different, modernized value systems, or about what strategy to adopt to inspire them. Instead, generational issues have now expanded to encompass the whole organization, challenging its management and supervision levels significantly. A large number of new recruits begin their career at the call center with more superior educational qualifications, compared to older, experienced seniors. They either hold college/university degrees or, at least, meet the two-year college requirement that is now established in a number of law enforcement agencies. At the same time, even top executives at the organization hold advanced degrees and have superior knowledge and ability in overseeing and guiding the organization. But, individuals holding the middle-level managerial and first-line supervisory posts probably constitute the organization's most multigenerational population. This population, which mostly lags behind their subordinates and top executives in terms of educational attainment, will typically wish to hold on to the traditional command-and-control and paramilitary approaches of leadership and management with their subordinates, thereby posing as a great obstacle to organizational change (Anthony W. Batts, Sean Michael Smoot, & Ellen Scrivner, 2012).

Discussing internal and external outcomes separately is only done out of convenience; in truth, they are connected, to some extent. One cannot tell whether or not the call center's activities have impacted crime levels and related issues if its structure, personnel, culture, and operations basically remain unchanged. Law enforcement departments seeking organizational change need to sensibly deal with the police force bureaucracy, which has been considered the greatest barrier identified, against problem- and community- oriented practices policing. For addressing this particular barrier, community and organizational managers who expect police officers on patrol to develop trust and analyze issues must do so, too, within the organization (i.e., W.A. Police Communications call center). Furthermore, organizational leaders have to steer clear of the problem-solving-related pitfalls faced by field officers. Instead of merely detecting and fixing problems, their decision-making must be much more inclusive and analytical, looking closely at both internal and external obstacles to, and drivers of, change (Edward Connors & Barbara Webster, 2001).

1. How would you review and evaluate the change management project plan and modify as needed to achieve objectives?

The change management strategy review and evaluation for W.A. Policing Communications needs to look into the following elements, the absence of which would indicate an ineffective change management (James M. Hart, 1996): Communication -- Finding an effective way to communicate the need for, and nature of, proposed changes, as well as the organizational vision with respect to those changes, is a key component of change management. External communications hold great significance with increased 'openness' of the system, and with a need for exchanging change-related information imperative to improved outputs. Management Support -- One cannot simply assume the top management's readiness to change is in line with intermediate or operational level personnel's views. Active middle- and top- management support is crucial to change success. Leadership -- This is essential for overcoming significant levels of employee uncertainty typically associated with major change. Effective change management principles must be applied to groups and individuals in the organization who struggle to work under novel circumstances and with novel procedures. Change Teams -- Experts assert that major organizational change is an intrinsically complex process. It is not very likely that the organization has the ideal change manager (possessing all required abilities to capably manage change singlehandedly) in its employ. Thus, assembling a 'task force' or 'change team' having the required complementary skills as well as diverse experiences has been recommended, for effective change implementation.